Behind the Scene - Quiet Times
Quiet Times | Highbanks Metro Park
What does it mean to know a place? When I first got started in landscape photography I would hear people say this or read about it in a blog post and it never really made a ton of sense to me. It felt like “Art-Speak”, something people said in an attempt to give meaning to something that didn’t naturally possess that meaning, but over the past three years it has begun to click. Columbus, OH has a really strong Metro Park system that runs around the suburbs and first and foremost protects important natural areas and provides us with a place to enjoy a little bit of nature. Closest to me is Highbanks Metro Park, about 10 minutes away. For the past three years I have visited this park in all seasons and nearly all conditions.
You certainly can plan out an image well in advance and know exactly where to be and when to be there to make a specific photograph, but I don’t think that is what knowing a location is really about. In fact, I don’t believe doing that means you know anything about the location, more likely it means you know how to navigate some apps or websites. Many of the epic landscape photographs we see on social media are created in this way. For some it makes a lot of sense. You may need an image of a particular location to round out a project. But making that image and knowing when to be there doesn’t mean you know the place.
I’ve begun to break down this idea into two components. The first is knowing under what conditions it would be “best” (this is super relative) to show up in a location. For example, with Quiet Times I’ve been here more times than I can count. On three or four occasions there was a really dense fog that blocked the view of these trees except for a silhouette. I have one image from the summer where there was some low fog in the valley and some fog behind the tree line, which was the image I really wanted. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the uniformity of that image, it was all green! I took the shot and held on to it, not doing much more than that, but I had the idea ready for when the conditions aligned. A less experienced version of myself may have ventured to a different part of the park or a different place entirely. By judging the conditions and reflecting back on some experiences I intentionally selected this area and I’m glad I did!
The second component is far more challenging and one I don’t know if I will ever truly accomplish. This part is more about being able to communicate a sense of the place. More than just its beauty, this is about its significance, its importance, its uniqueness. This is much harder to express. Maybe there are significant parts of a location that help tell the story. Maybe there is a mood or an emotion that can be tied to a location. And then, who is to say what is significant to you would be significant to someone else, and that the same moods or emotions you associate with a location can also be picked up by another. In this case, there is nothing epic about the park. It’s beautiful and I love spending time there, but it’s no national park.
So what is meaningful about Highbanks Metro Park? In the first sense, it does present some geographically significant natural features (none of which I have really photographed or showcased in my work), there are a pair of Bald Eagles that live along the river, there are two trees that are reportedly over 500 years old, they have found prehistoric fossils of fish, it was home to a native american defensive fortification, and an early pioneer settlement (link). None of these features play an important role in my images. Which leads me to believe that while maybe I still have a long way to go, and new things to learn and explore, I’m leaning into the second component even more. I’m not sure that we can every fully capture what a place means to others, but I think we can begin to express what it means to us and maybe by doing so the images resonate with others. For me, Highbanks is a place to seek quiet. To find some calm, even if it is only for an hour or two. A place to be curious, get lost inside the four frames of my camera, or just go for a hike for a bit. Combine this with a growing understanding of how the park interacts with the elements and the weather and I have a better chance of communicating what the park means to me through images.
This is my perception in January 2023, it is likely that my ideas and understanding will morph over time, I am ok with this. If there is one thing I have learned in the last three years, it is that with photography sometimes you can find the answers, but sometimes you just have to be patient and wait until the answers find you. Below, please enjoy a collection of images all made within Highbanks Metro Park in Columbus, OH, many of them in the smallest section of the park.
If you enjoyed this article, feel free to check out Behind the Scene - Oak on the Water, the first in this series. If you would like to receive updates when I post my next article in the “Behind the Scene” series, please consider signing up with the form below.
